Home is Not a Place, it's a Person
by TortiQuercu
Summary: My explanation for Hawkeye's absence from The Winter Soldier. He's under-cover in Romania, and the Black Widow takes it upon herself to retrieve him. Mostly a conversation piece with feels around the edges. Clintasha one-shot, rated T for language.


**A/N: It's been a long time since I wrote a Clintasha piece, but all the Age of Ultron buzz has me thinking about them again. The short one-shot includes a cameo appearance by the arrow necklace from Winter Soldier! Set after the events of Cap 2: The Winter Soldier and season 1 Agents of SHIELD. I hope you enjoy it! :)**

**The title is paraphrased from author Stephanie Perkins.**

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><p>It was a brief bus ride from the oil field into the closest town of Botoșani. Every fifteen days, the company would pile the men onto a battered shuttle and take the young roughnecks into the city to spend their pay checks at bars and strip joints owned by the same petroleum company that employed them. Three unsupervised days of drinking, sex, smokes and other assorted debauchery flew by in a heartbeat for the majority of the crew, but not for Clint.<p>

For Clint, going into Botoșani was a bad case of whiplash. The small city was grossly picturesque, ideal for decorating postcards and fairy tale dollhouses. It was the precise opposite of the nearby oil fields of Lebăda, where men toiled in sweat, grease and the occasional illegal arms deal. It wasn't that Clint preferred the seedy work camp, but his crew members had different agendas in the pretty town and his _own_ work ground to a halt.

The strip club of choice for his current entourage didn't even have a name. It boasted oversized drinks and underaged girls, and the men from Lebăda were treated like celebrities when they were on furlough. He was sitting with a group of chain-smoking roughnecks, swilling high-end champagne, when he picked up on a disturbance near the front of the club. He quietly pulled the knife from his boot and stubbed out his cigarette.

Silence rolled across the club like a wave, with even the dancers on stage pausing and staring at whatever was moving through the club. Low whistles and muttered curses reached them first. Clint adjusted his grip on the knife and loosened his posture, prepared to vault into action as….

The crowd parted and the drilling crew stared, mouths hanging open. Somewhere deep in the club, someone coughed. A pin could drop and it would have been heard like a gunshot.

"Drago!" hissed the newly-present and nervous blonde as she glanced around. The denizens of the strip joint stared in fascination at her. "Trebuie să vorbesc cu tine." _I need to talk to you._

All eyes shifted to Clint Barton, often known as Hawkeye, currently known as Dragomir Eminescu. He swallowed hard and pushed the knife back into his boot. Slowly, he rose from the booth and leaned forward into the light, pinning the interloper with a hard stare.

The blonde wig didn't alter that she was still the most beautiful woman he had ever known, and judging by the looks around the club, he wasn't the only one. Her skittish demeanour was, while adorable, entirely contrived, and he wondered why she was offering him the status boost. He didn't care, though…. he was still mad at her.

"_Drago!_" she whispered again, barely looking at him. One of the roughnecks nearby made a lewd comment and boldly reached out for her.

"Cosmin," Clint growled suddenly, causing the roughneck to freeze. "If you touch my wife," he slurred in Romanian, "I'll break both your arms."

Eyes widened around the club and the crowd surrounding their booth took a uniform step backwards. One of the older drillers at Clint's table downed his drink and cleared his throat. "Dragomir," he rumbled. "Perhaps you need a private moment with… your _wife?_"

Cling grunted and gestured towards the front of the club. "It seems so," he replied, his voice clipped. "Well, Yelena, you found me. Let's take this outside, shall we?"

She looked up at him, under long lashes, and for fraction of a second her eyes flashed. He shook his head. _That_ was more like his girl. He grabbed her by the elbow because he knew it would piss her off and steered her unceremoniously to the doors. The guests slowly filtered back to their drinks and the dancers to their previous positions.

She hissed at him when they burst out into the night air, but he brusquely raised a finger to silence her. He let go of her arm and pointed at a distant alley without a word. She swung her hair over her shoulder defiantly and marched off in that direction. He followed right behind her.

As soon as they were off the street and into the darkness, she spun around to face him. "You're a hard man to track down, _Mr. Eminescu_."

"Hello, Natasha," he retorted. "It's lovely to see you too!"

"Bullshit," she narrowed her eyes. "I'm the _last _person you wanted to see. I can tell by the way your zygomaticus muscle keeps twitching."

"It's always a fucking anatomy lesson with you, isn't it?" Clint rolled his eyes.

"Don't be an asshole, Clint. Jesus Christ. Do you have any idea what's been going on? You have bigger problems that me showing up in the middle of your little boy's club."

"Fuck off, I'm working," he snapped. After a pause, his face softened. "What do you mean, what's going on?"

She snorted. "Oh, you know… Hydra's still alive, SHIELD has fallen, Fury's in hiding. The usual."

He stared at her for several moments. "That explains why no one's been meeting my check-ins," he said eventually.

She grimaced at him as she pulled off her blonde wig. "You're kidding, right? You've got to be kidding me."

He sighed and rubbed his face wearily. "Well, shit. I was hoping it was just some dickhead terror cell disrupting communications, but I had a bad feeling. I hate being right."

She lifted her hands to her head and mussed her hair, the long red tresses drawing his attention against his will. He pressed his lips into a thin line. God, how he loved Nat's hair…. she probably knew that.

"So what, you knew something was up but you figured you'd stick around the oil field for kicks? Is drilling really that much fun?"

"I wasn't going to throw away an op just because I'd heard some unlikely Hydra rumblings and no one was picking up the phone back at the office, no. I figured someone would eventually come looking. And BINGO! Here you are."

"No one sent me, Barton," she gave a short laugh. "I've spent the last month in a fish bowl on Capitol Hill. I was sort of expecting you to show up, actually."

"Well, you've had Capt. Rogers at your side recently, you didn't need me. Or is it just 'Steve' now?"

She stared at him in shock. "Holy shit, Barton, is that was this is all about? You're _jealous?_"

He scoffed. "Oh, _please_. Don't flatter yourself, Princess."

Natasha's eyes went flinty. "I'm giving you _one_ pass, Barton," her voice was low and dangerous. "You're a little drunk and you've been living in a cave with a bunch of neanderthals. But if you ever talk to me like that again, I'll carve out one of your kidneys with a rusty linoleum knife, and then you can update me about how you feel about my anatomy lessons."

Clint said nothing, but did give her a sheepish look.

"Glad that's clear. For your information, Steve is a comrade-in-arms. Like Hill or May or de la Fontaine, or any other _female_ SHIELD agent that I assume you aren't sleeping with. Correct me if I'm wrong there."

"Not for lack of Val trying," he muttered, and Natasha smacked him rather solidly on the shoulder.

"God, you're irritating sometimes, Barton," she grumbled with exasperation. "I don't think you get it. We were betrayed from the top down. The Triskelion is _gone_. Everything from The Fridge is in enemy hands. It's been a goddamn slaughter! Victoria Hand is dead. Secretary Pierce, Senator Stern, Jasper Sitwell and John Garrett…. all Hydra agents. And that's for starters. Are you getting a feel for the scope I'm talking about?"

Clint's eyes were wide with disbelief. "How…. _what__…__..?_"

Her lips set into a thin, angry line . "Okay, seriously, Barton… have you not so much as glanced at a television or newspaper in the last six weeks?"

He shook his head slowly. "No… it's pretty dark out in the oil fields. I had just picked up some hints from the smugglers who come in from Moldova. Jesus Christ." Clint slumped down to the ground and held his head in his hands. "I liked Vic Hand. Tough as hell but she never dicked around, you know? She was straight up. I hope she went down fighting. And Sitwell? Really? Dammit, I liked Jasper."

Natasha exhaled slowly, and crouched down beside him. "It's a bloody mess. SHIELD has been declared a terrorist organization and all our records have gone public. You'd better throw away your badge and go to ground. That's what most of the survivors are doing."

"What's left?" he asked quietly. He reached a hand out to her, and she twined her fingers with his. She recognized the gesture as his form of apology, and she accepted it.

"Stark's got an open door and an army of lawyers protecting anyone who wants in, that's where Maria went. We lost most of our facilities to Hydra. Anything we managed to save, The Hub for example, has been turned over to the Armed Forces. So we're homeless, by the way."

"Shit. I left my CDs on the Helicarrier. I should have put all my music onto an iPod when you told me to." He sighed dramatically, and leaned his sandy blond head against her shoulder. "Thanks for coming to get me, Tash."

She smiled warmly. "Maria's trying to run clean-up as best as she can, but I wasn't going to leave you hanging. I was on the first flight to Iași once the senate committee cut me loose, I swear."

"Well, thanks," Clint murmured, his eyes closing. "Who knows how long it would have been until someone came looking for me otherwise… so, yeah. Glad you've got my back. I'm sorry I was a jackass just now."

Natasha's eyes went wide and she cocked her head. "Clinton Francis Barton…. was that… an apology? Did you really use the S word, or am I hallucinating?"

He chuckled wryly. "I'm trying to keep you on your toes. Is it working?"

"I'm positively _en pointe_."

"Fuck. That reminds me how much I miss watching you dance. Hey, I notice you said that _Maria_ had gone to Stark's… but not you?"

It was Natasha's turn to chuckle. "Oh, you noticed that, did you?"

"Well, I just _look_ like an idiot."

She shrugged, causing his head to bounce slightly. "I haven't decided yet. I wanted to talk to you first. I'm not going anywhere without you, _тупица_."

Clint's storm-coloured eyes flew open. "Really?" he murmured, ignoring the insult. "I'll never figure out why you stick arou…holy shit, you're wearing the necklace."

Clint's head still rested on Natasha's shoulder, with a clear view across her collarbones. He was stunned to find himself staring at the small arrow pendant he'd given her months earlier.

"Of course I am," she smiled smugly at him. "First of all, it's platinum and who knows when I might urgently need a non-reactive catalyst. And secondly…" she paused and he looked up at her inquisitively. "I love it," she finished, still smirking.

He closed his eyes again with a sigh. "So S.H.I.E.L.D. is gone, right? Even the paperwork?"

"Disbanded and disavowed. Even the paperwork."

"In that case," the archer whispered against her shoulder, "I love you, Nat."

She was silent and he counted out several beats before looking up at her with trepidation. "Hey," he said, forcing his voice to an even tone. "It's okay if… if that's not okay. Okay? I assumed you already knew, but there is plenty of evidence to suggest that I'm terrible with relationships and…."

"Clint," she interrupted, snapping her right hand up to cover his face. "It's okay. Of course it's okay. Do you think I'd trudge all the way out here to find you if it wasn't okay? You _know_ how much I hate sneaking around former Soviet states."

"I never know," he sighed into the palm of her hand. His breath tickled and her hand twitched, causing him to sit back up in amusement. Her eyes were overly bright; he could trick himself into thinking she might have been close to a tear or two.

"I came to bring you home, Drago," Natasha teased him. "Are you coming with me, or not?"

"Stark Tower?" he asked, wincing.

"There is a jacuzzi in every guest room," replied the assassin.

"Yeah. And a nosy sentient A.I."

"Egyptian cotton sheets!"

"You know I prefer Pima."

"Kona coffee. Laundry service. 1.4 terabit internet. Eagle Rare bourbon."

"….the 10-year?"

"Naturally. I've heard it's got a crème brûlée-like finish."

"I want a bottle every week."

"There's one waiting in your study…. along with your CD collection that I smuggled off the Helicarrier."

"You're perfect," he laughed.

"Damn straight. But I'm warning you now, if you play those Lyle Lovett albums when I'm home, I'm moving into my own suite." She swallowed thickly as the meaning behind her words sank in.

"….. Tasha?" his voice was suddenly dry.

"Я тоже тебя люблю," she murmured in reply._ I love you too_. "There's a plane out of Iași at daybreak, think we can make it?"

He brought himself to his feet, and held out his hand to pull her up. "I bet a set of Pima cotton sheets we can. Come on, firecracker. Take me home."


End file.
